Monday, December 5, 2016

Dramatis personae

Quid occurrit

After the fight, Ash picked up the shield of one of the fallen orcs. It had a crude drawing of something on it, with both fangs and horns. Maybe it was the orc’s girlfriend.

Kôštē healed Kim most of the way, then healed Caleb enough so that he woke up. She also healed Mayhem of some of his pain, but he was still asleep.

The next morning, 4 Brugés, was wet from rain. Villûdē got everyone back to the raft, but nowhere else. (I failed every roll for her, so the gang was moving at 5% of its normal Move.)

She did make camp alright. The alligator came again in middle of night. Ash warned everyone, and Kim slipped behind alligator and stabbed it, but she couldn’t finish the job so the alligator slipped away.

The next day had nicer weather. Kôštē finished healing Caleb, and healed Mayhem. However, he was still asleep, so she dumped two healing potions down his throat so he could wake up instead of dying from dehydration. They whole gang left the swamp to rest up. On the way, they saw the alligator in morning, but it swam away.

When gathering food that afternoon, Ash found a blackberry bush. He tried to pick some, and the ground gave way and he fell down three feet. The roots of the bush tried to grab Ash, but missed him twice and Ash climbed out.

The next day had good weather. Kôštē healed Mayhem most of the way up. They chose to take a chance and go to Vēristés Castle to warn them of orcs. Caleb gave a note to guards and left after hearing them rant and swear a few times. That night, they camped midway between the castle and the swamp.

The day after that had great weather. They made it back to their raft, and went back into swamp.

The eighth of Bruges also had great weather. While floating through the swamp, the raft hit a small bank of land. This is something that happens many time every day, but this time, the weeds on the land grabbed Kim. She slipped out of their grip, and Villûdē pushed the raft away.

Yogi Bear wandered to camp in the evening, the night of the first quarter moon. Mayhem threw him some fish and he trundled away.

The next day, they made it to north end of naga island. They spent most of the day after that foraging. Mayhem searched the north end of the island for lairs and found none.

The next day was still warm, with a midday rain shower. However, Kim and Kôštē felt ill, with mild fevers and coughs. They went into the thicker woods to the south to look for lairs other than the one of the nagas they knew therein. Late that afternoon, some weeds slashed the legs of Mayhem and Ash. Ash stepped back, but Mayhem cut the weeds before him with his axe. A cloud of smoke came from weeds, and now everyone backed off. The smoke made Villûdē, Kôštē, and especially Caleb weak.

Cindy Bear came to camp in middle of night, and Mayhem threw her a fish.

The weather the next day good, so Mayhem kept searching for lairs. However, he found none. Mayhem finished his search for lairs, found only the nagas’. Caleb also started feeling sick, but Kim started feeling better. Yogi came in middle of night after another rain storm. Ash threw him some of Kim’s food, and threw him more when he didn’t go away at first.

The ground the next day was damp from rain. Kôštē’s cough was getting worse, while Caleb still weak from the smoke but his cough wasn’t worse. Most everyone stayed in the camp. Yogi came for food again at end of night.

Res aliae

The fight with the tangle weed was our first chance to try GURPS Martial Arts: Technical Grappling. It seemed to work. I don’t think it’s any more complex than the normal GURPS grappling rules, but it’s more GURPS-like. Still, it’s a bit fiddly, as I kept having to look up the thrust damage Kim’s Escape-18 gave her at each level of active control from the tangle weed. The blow-by-blow was:

Tangle weed: hits Kim with frond, does 6 CP.

Kim: rolls Escape to break free. Her Escape is normally 18, but down to 15 due to active control of 6 CP. She succeeds, and does 3 CP, knocking the active control the tangle weed has to 3 CP.

Tangle weed: tries force posture change to get her down to the ground. It was at -4 to get Kim to go from standing to lying supine in the sunshine (brownie points to anyone who knows from where I got that line), but it spent its 3 CP to weaken the penalty. It failed.

Kim: rolled Escape to break free again, and succeeded easily.

Am I getting this right?

There was quite a few plants this time, owing to many rolls of true random encounters. One (the devilbush) I timed to sync up with the delver who did the worst at foraging that day, which was Ash. The tangle weeds I had randomly hit someone on the raft. The witherweed happened to hit the folks in the front rank as they were wandering through the woods. I think I should have given a few Per-based Naturalist rolls, though Kim and Ash lack the skill so likely would have failed (defaults would be 7 and 5, respectively).

I do like the effect of the plants, however. I’m thinking of them as the slimes of the wild. Slimes in the dungeon keep the group moving, heightening the peril. Plants in the wild keep the group from going further, heightening the peril. And the witherweed was truly wicked after the gang got exposed to Pontiac fever. and lost HT as damage and thus making sure they failed a few rolls. It didn’t help that the cleric got hit the worst.